Claude A. Swanson

Claude Augustus Swanson (31 March 1862-7 July 1939) was a member of the US House of Representatives (D-VA 5) from 4 March 1893 to 30 January 1906 (succeeding Posey G. Lester and preceding Edward W. Saunders), Governor of Virginia from 1 February 1906 to 10 February 1910 (succeeding Andrew Jackson Montague and preceding William Hodges Mann), US Senator from 1 August 1910 to 4 March 1933 (succeeding John W. Daniel and preceding Harry F. Byrd), and Secretary of the Navy from 5 March 1933 to 7 July 1939 (succeeding Charles Francis Adams III and preceding Charles Edison).

Biography
Claude Augustus Swanson was born in Swansonville, Virginia in 1862, and he worked as a merchant (as was the family tradition) before becoming a teacher and lawyer. From 1893 to 1906, he served in the US House of Representatives, and he then served as Governor from 1906 to 1910, as a US Senator from 1910 to 1933, and as Secretary of the Navy from 1933 to 1939. He supported William Jennings Bryan's inflationary fiscal reforms during the 1893 financial crisis, child labor and banking reforms, reduced tariffs, federal funding of highway construction, and secretly supported women's suffrage despite his public attacks on it (he advised President Woodrow Wilson to enact the 19th Amendment). Swanson died in 1939 while serving as Secretary of the Navy under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.